Читать книгу Defoe on Sheppard and Wild: The True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild by Daniel Defoe - Даниэль Дефо, Данієль Дефо, Даниэль Дефо - Страница 4

On 4 September, 1724, an insignificant small-time thief named John Sheppard was due to be hanged, with several others, at Tyburn gallows (now Marble Arch) in London. His crime was stealing three rolls of fustian cloth, two silver spoons and a silk handkerchief, total worth £50. But on that crisp autumn morning a surprising official announcement appeared in the leading London broadsheets.

Whereas John Sheppard broke out of the Condemned Hold of Newgate (with his Irons on) by cutting off one of the large Iron Spikes over the main Door on Monday 31 August last, about six o’clock of the Evening … And Whereas he is about 23 years of Age and about five Foot four Inches high, very slender, and of a pale Complexion, has lately been very sick, did wear a light Bob Wig, a light coloured Cloth Coat, and white Waistcoat, has an impediment in his Speech and is a Carpenter by Trade … Whoever will discover or apprehend him so that he be brought to Justice shall receive 20 guineas Reward to be paid by the Keeper of Newgate.

From this moment Jack Sheppard became a celebrity. It was not for his crimes, which were commonplace, but for his astonishing escapes from prison. In fact young Sheppard (he was actually twenty-two) had been escaping from prisons all over London that spring and summer of 1724. First from St Giles Roundhouse in April (where he went out through the prison roof, throwing down tiles at his pursuers); next from the New Bridewell Prison, Clerkenwell, in May (where he got out through a barred window with a 25 foot drop beneath, and took his shapely mistress Elizabeth Lyon with him); and then in August from the condemned cell of Newgate Prison itself, where the file for the ‘large Iron Spike’ was provided by the same Elizabeth Lyon, together with the classic disguise of a woman’s dress.